In the aftermath of the bombing of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, social media was ablaze with a surge of disinformation about who was to blame for the attack. This included a post from a Twitter/X account, which posed as an Al Jazeera journalist named “Farida Khan,” falsely claiming to possess a video of a “Hamas missile landing in the hospital.” The account was deleted once Al Jazeera issued a clarification stating that it did not employ anyone by that name. But the damage had already been done, with the false claims all over social media.

This account was part of a larger wave of far-right Hindu Indian accounts actively spreading Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian disinformation. Alarmingly, Indian accounts like that of “Farida” are at the forefront of fighting Israel’s PR war, often using fake news to justify war crimes against Palestinians and stoke hatred against Muslim minorities living in India.

Since the start of the latest round of conflict on October 7, far-right Hindu Indians have been flooding feeds and chat groups on Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp with stories, videos, and photos falsely blaming Palestinians for gruesome atrocities, in order to bolster Israel’s claims that its carpet-bombing of civilians is a matter of self-defense.